Toronto Games Week 2026

The Beautiful Game

For Toronto Games Week 2026, the Broken Games Collective teamed up with the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto Mississauga Library to install a one-week exhibit on soccer video games from the past 50 years. The Beautiful Game: A Playable History of Soccer Video Games ran from June 11 to 17, 2026, in the ROM’s Earth Rangers Studio.

The exhibit featured a dozen games from the Syd Bolton Collection, from the earliest home console experiments to titles that shaped how a generation understood sport, competition, and play. It contrasted games that aimed for realism, in 2D and 3D simulations, with games that went all in on spectacle and fun. Five of them were playable:

• Pelé’s Soccer (Atari VCS)
• Nintendo World Cup (NES)
• World Championship Soccer (Sega Genesis)
• Virtua Striker 2 (Sega Dreamcast)
• Super Mario Strikers (Nintendo GameCube)

The exhibit was often packed with people! Close to 5,000 visitors came through over the week. The busiest day was Tuesday, June 16, during the ROM’s free Third Tuesday Night.

The City of Toronto also highlighted the exhibit as part of its Video Game Month, and I gave CBC Radio’s Fresh Air a tour. Listen to the interview.

The physical exhibit is over, but UTM Library has a digital version with all of the items and their descriptions.

Thank you to the ROM, UTM Library, Game Arts International Network, Toronto Game Expo, and Toronto Games Week!

• The Beautiful Game digital exhibit
• Broken Games Collective newsletter recap
• Royal Ontario Museum
• Toronto Games Week